Future Plans
by Kate Barnes
When I am an old, old woman I may very well be
living all alone like many another before me
and I rather look forward to the day when I shall have
a tumbledown house on a hill top and behave
just as I wish to. No more need to be proud—
at the tag end of life one is at last allowed
to be answerable to no one. Then I shall wear
a shapeless felt hat clapped on over my white hair,
sneakers with holes for the toes, and a ragged dress.
My house shall be always in a deep-drifted mess,
my overgrown garden a jungle. I shall keep a crew
of cats and dogs, with perhaps a goat or two
for my agate-eyed familiars. And what delight
I shall take in the vagaries of day and night,
in the wind in the branches, in the rain on the roof!
I shall toss like an old leaf, weather-mad, without reproof.
I’ll wake when I please, and when I please I shall doze;
whatever I think, I shall say; and I suppose
that with such a habit of speech I’ll be let well alone
to mumble plain truth like an old dog with a bare bone.
Kate Barnes, “Future Plans” from Where the Deer Were. Copyright © 2000 by Kate Barnes. Used with the permission of The Permissions Company, LLC, on behalf of David R Godine, Publisher, Inc.,
A friend of mine was the writer for Johnny Carson. He was as shy as Johnny and consequently , a great fit! I’m sure they’ve grown together and would still sync easily> Introverts unite! Ray Siller and Johnny Carson
It’s the birthday of the most popular talk show host in American history, Johnny Carson, born in Corning, Iowa (1925). He was the son of a utility company lineman and he grew up an extremely shy boy. But when he was 12 years old he happened to read a how-to book about magic tricks and he became obsessed. He later said that it was the discovery of magic that helped him relate to people. He sent away for a mail-order magic kit and began following his family members around the house, asking them to pick a card. He performed publicly for the first time when he was 14 at the local rotary club. His mother sewed him a cape embroidered with his name, “The Great Carsoni.”
He went on performing magic at local parties and clubs and when he was in the Navy during World War II he was chosen to assist Orson Welles in a magic performance for the troops. Welles sawed his wife, Rita Hayworth, in half onstage, and Carson later said it was one of the high points of his life.
He studied speech and drama at the University of Nebraska and it was there that he got interested in comedy. His senior thesis was titled, “How to Write Comedy Jokes.” He worked for years in radio and on small-time TV shows including a game show called Who Do You Trust? But his big break came when he took over hosting The Tonight Show from Jack Paar in 1962. At the time nighttime talk shows were a mixture of intellectual discussion, controversy, and comedy. What made Johnny Carson unique was that he retained the talk show format of interviewing guests, including scientists and writers, but he turned everything into a joke.
Carson’s show also became the premier venue for new stand-up comedians. Getting booked on The Tonight Show was considered the biggest break a comedian could get, and if Carson invited a comedian to sit down after the routine, it was a sign that the comedian had made it.
By the mid-1970s more than 15 million people were watching The Tonight Show every night before they went to bed. Carson hosted the show for 30 years, which was two-thirds of the time that national TV had existed. He retired from the show after having taped 4,531 shows and almost never appeared in public again. One of his few TV appearances after his retirement was a one-minute spot on David Letterman’s show during which Carson remained completely silent. He died in 2005.
The Vibrant Channeled Creator 